The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Well, after another busy Wednesday in the field the day is done. Today was a different kind of day in the classroom; which makes sense seeing as the day prior was Halloween as well as having the first big snowfall for teachers, students, and parents to wake up to. With that being said, the students all entered the classroom happily and excited o start the day. My teaching partner and I even received some huge smiles and hugs before the day began. We started off the day by getting settled and completing the morning ritual of filling out agendas. My teaching partner’s and I’s cooperating teacher then had the students form a circle and did a circle talk about anything they wanted to talk about before the day began.

Following this, it was time for me to start my lesson. It was an interesting start. Originally, we thought there would be access to a piano, which would’ve been a great asset for the Arts Education lesson on pitch, layering, and patterns. I even brushed up on my piano skills so I would be able to play while students were singing along. Click here to listen/view.

Firstly, I had the students watch a YouTube Video of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, performed by Jimmy Fallon and Billy Joel. In this video, Jimmy and Billy use the app Loopy to record the different layers of a verse in the song in a variety of pitches. The app then records all of these and plays them back at the same time. After watching this, we then did this as a class.

Following this, we then explored what other variations we could do with this song by switching parts that people sang, different pitches, etc. The students learned how to layer music in a fun way with a song that was familiar to the majority of the students. The lesson finished off by singing the whole song one last time and then each student proceeded to fill out an exit slip about what they learned in this lesson. Here are a few examples:

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Overall, while there were a few challenges behavioral wise and in terms of having to adapt this lesson, but the lesson ended up going pretty well. All of the students were excited to learn and I can not wait for next week for the opportunity to teach once again!